•STATE- 
STREET 



STATE STREET 

A BRIEF ACCOUNT 

OF A BOSTON 

WAY 




PRINTKD FOR TIIK 
STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY 
' BOSTON, MASS. 



COPYRIGHTED 1906 
STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY 



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,^q 



THE ORNAMENTS ON PAGES ONE, THIRTY- 
NINE AND FORTY-TWO ARE REPRODUCED 
FROM THE STONES MARKING THE SPOT 
IN STATE STREET WHERE THE BOSTON 
MASSACRE OCCURRED. THE ORNAMENT 
ON PAGE THIRTY-SIX IS A COPY OF THE 
TABLET ON THE BUILDING OPPOSITE 
THE MASSACRE 



Gift 
Aiiihor 



15 



WALTON 

ADVERTISING AND PRINTING COMPANY 

BOSTON, MASS. 



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THE ORIGINALS OF THE CUTS 
USED IN THIS PAMPHLET AND 
MANY OTHER QUAINT AND IN 
TERESTING PICTURES MAY BE 
SEEN ON THE WALLS OF THE 
MAIN OFFICE OF THE STATE 
STREET TRUST COMPANY AT 
38 STATE STREET, BOSTON 




STATE STRET 




THE BEGINNING OF A WAY. 

THE street is old, — as old as Boston 
itself. If one would look for its ori- 
gin, he must go back to the days 
before the Puritans of St. Botolph's town set 
foot upon the hills that run up from Boston Har- 
bor. Even then he is forced to fall upon con- 
jecture, and surmise that it may have been the 
trail which the Indians followed from their camps 
on Shawmut Hills to their fisheries in the 
bay. William Blackstone, the only white in- 
habitant on Tri-mountain previous to 1630, 
may have trod the self -same trail on his way along 
the ridge, which was the principal spur from 
Century Hill down to the water. State Street, 
despite the uncertainty of its origin, has been 
from the very day of Boston's settlement Bos- 
ton's most important thoroughfare. 

The street has written itself large and per- 
manently in the records of an ancient town and 
on the page of a nation's history. When Eng- 



STATE STREET 



lish ships brought English goods to Puritan 
homes in the days of the first settlers, it was the 
mart of trade and the seat of justice. Upon 
it lived the early settlers and the town's first mer- 
chants. Many scenes of Provincial interest and 
Colonial importance had here their setting, and on 
its frosty pavement was spilled the first blood of 
the Revolution. To-day about it throbs the 
financial interest of a great State, and to it are 
ever turning for help the industrial projects of 
a great nation. 



EARLY COLONIAL LANDMARKS. 

OUR Puritan forbears were men of order 
and system, — men who believed in metes 
and bounds to everything. So we find 
them early setting down their names and lands 
in the Book of Possessions, and back to this old 
record go many of the deeds of Boston. This 
book was a record of a survey, by order of the 
General Court, April 1, 1634, of the lands and 
houses of the first inhabitants. On the old map, 
five by nine feet, is the earliest record of State 
Street. It appears a short, nameless way from 
the water up to the hills, and is dotted on either 
side with the houses of the first settlers. 



STATE STREET 



At its head, where now the Old State House 
stands, was the first market-place. And so it 
was that, as early as 1G36, when the lines of cer- 
tain streets were fixed and had by popular con- 
sent been named, State Street was known as 
Market Street. 



THE FIRST CHURCH OF BOSTON. 

ACROSS the way from the market-place in 
1632, on the site since occupied by Brazer's 
Building, stood the first meeting-house, 
later dignified as the First Church. It was a rude 
but substantial building, with walls of mud and 
thatched roof. Its first pastor, the Rev. John 
Wilson, lived on his farm, on the opposite side of 
Market Street; and his colleague was the redoubt- 
able John Cotton, formerly the pastor of old St. 
Botolph's, Boston, England. Services were held 
under the trees previous to its erection. The 
meeting-house had become too small in 1639, and 
in 1640 a new one was erected on the site of the 
late Joy Building. The second meeting-house 
was destroyed in the conflagration of 1711, the 
greatest of the eight great fires that Boston had 
then experienced, but was rebuilt. General Wash- 
ington with all his troops, after the siege of Boston, 



STATE STKEI':T 



attended services at the First Cliiirch, and then 
adjourned to the Bunch of Grapes Tavern to re- 
fresh the body. 



THE BIBLE, THE ROD, AND A 
PRISONER. 

IN those early days of rigid Hves the Bible and 
the rod were often inseparable. The whij)ping- 
post and the stocks, therefore, stood on Market 
Street, almost in front of the door of the First 
Church; and great was the impartiality with which 
justice, at least, was then dealt out. The first 
prisoner, for instance, of the stocks was the car- 
penter, Edward Palmer, who built them in 1639. 
The town fathers were incensed at his exorbitant 
bill for their construction, and they laid their 
strong hands upon him, and he forthwith spent an 
hour as a prisoner of his own creation and as a for- 
bidding example to like grasping merchants with 
whom the early town may have been " afflicted. '* 
These instruments of punishment were, in later 
years, put on wheels, and were moved from place 
to place. The stocks in 1801 were located near 
Change Avenue. Public whipping was not inflicted 
in Boston after 1803. 

Market Street was also the "sacred way" along 



STATE STREET 



which the train band of our Puritan fathers 
marched and manoeuvred. 

The Provincial Governors were inaugurated in the 
Town House, and then, appearing in the famous 
window of the east balcony, received the cheers 
of the populace. As the town grew, the streets 
slowly multiplied about this parent of Boston's 
thoroughfares; and finally. May 3, 1708, the select- 
men, determining that Market Street should have 
a worthier name, ordered that "the street leading 
from Cornhill, includeing the wayes on each side 
of the Town house extending easterly to the sea,'* 
should be called "King Street." In 1784, after 
the Revolution had severed all the regal ties of 
the Commonwealth, the name was changed to 
State Street. 



AN OLD MAP, SOME STREETS, 
AND THE FIRST MERCHANTS. 

A VIEW early in the seventeenth century 
shows the street paved with pebbles and 
without sidewalks. There were "many 
faire shops," and over them lived the Boston mer- 
chants. The first map upon which the name 
"King Street" appears was that of Captain John 
.Bonner, printed in 1722 by Francis Deming, and 



STATE STREET 



sold by Williiiin Price "over against ye Towne 
house." Here first appears also Long Wharf. 
The harbor previous to the building of Long 
Wharf in 1710, which quadrupled King Street, 
flowed as far inland as Kilby Street on the south 
and Merchants' Row on the north. King Street 
was intercepted between Cornhill, now Washington 
Street, and the bay by Pudding Lane and Crooked 
Lane, now Devonshire Street. Crooked Lane ran 
through the farm of the Rev. John Wilson, pastor of 
the First Church. Shrimpton Street, now Exchange 
Place, took its name from an old Bostonian, as did 
Pierce's Alley, now Change Avenue. Leverett*s 
Lane, now Congress Street, took its name from 
Governor Leverett. Mackerel Lane, now Kilby 
Street, probably took its name from its proximity 
to the fish market. 



FROM WOOD TO BRICK AiND 
STONE. 

AS early as the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury brick and stone had begun to replace 
"wood, with which the town was originally 
built. Upon State Street most of the early "first 
citizens" of Boston had their homes. On the 
south-west corner lived Captain Robert Keayne, a 



STATE STREET 



leading merchant, founder of the Ancient and 
Honorable Artillery Company, and also the 
founder of the old Town House. The site of 
his house later was that of Daniel Henchman's 
bookstore, where General Henry Knox served 
his apprenticeship. The first shop in Boston was 
opened by James Coggan on the north-west 
corner of the same street. He lived over his 
place of business, as did all the leading 
merchants of early Boston. The Rev. John 
Wilson's home, too, was on Market Street, and 
just east of the old Exchange was the residence 
of Governor Leverett. The home of Richard 
Fairbanks, the first postmaster, stood not far from 
the old Town House. The General Court in 
1639 designated it as the place for all letters to 
be sent for delivery or forwarding over the seas. 

All the banks and brokers' offices in the town 
were at one time on State Street, and even as late 
as 1837 twenty-two of the thirty-five banks stood 
upon this street. A branch of the United States 
Bank from 1791 to 1836 stood on the site of the 
Brazer Building. The Massachusetts Bank was 
situated where No. 66 State Street was in 1870. 
The Union Bank, established in 1792, and located 
on the south-east corner of State and Exchange 
Streets, is on the site of the old Custom House. 



ST.VTE STREET 



Previous to the occupancy by the Union Bank the site 
was the dwelhng-place of Perez Morton. Now 
it is the home of the State Street Trust Company. 

LONG WHARF AND ITS STIIIRING 
EPISODES. 

THE houses that stood on Long Wharf are 
thought to have been the first numbered 
ones in Boston. The numbers ran from 
one to sixty-nine, inchisive. The Directory of 
Boston for 1801 shows the highest street number 
on State Street as eighty-two. On the north side 
of Long Wharf, which the Directory says "in 
every respect exceeds anything of the kind in the 
United States," large and commodious stores are 
shown. Long Wharf had a thoroughfare thirty 
feet wide on one side and a space of fifteen feet in 
the middle for boats to come up and unload. 
The wharf extended State Street one thousand 
seven hundred and forty-three feet into the harbor 
in a straight line with the street, and the breadth 
of the wharf was one hundred and four feet, with 
seventeen feet of water at ebb tide at the end. It 
was the largest of the eighty wharves and quays 
in Boston at this time. 

The wharf has witnessed many stirring and 



STATE STREET 



interesting scenes. It was the landinf]^-place of 
the Royal Governors, who, escorted by the flower 
of the Colony's Militia, marched up King Street to 
the Town House. Here, in 1768, landed the first 
British soldiers, sent over by the king to overawe 
the colonists, still incensed by the injustice of the 
Stamp Act. Some of these soldiers were quartered 
for a time in the Old State House before going into 
camp on the Common and Dock Square. The 
French allies, under Rocharabeau, were received 
here with delight by the populace in 1775. And 
on that momentous day, in June, 1775, the Royal 
Regiment of Colonel Dalrymple marched down 
King Street, embarked at Long Wharf, and en- 
tered the battle of Bunker Hill, from which many 
of the regiment never returned. The old custom 
of marching on State Street has continued, and 
down this street went many of the regiments that 
Massachusetts during the Rebellion sent to the front. 

GLEANINGS FROM AN OLD I)L 
RECTORY. 

TO the Bostonian of to-day the Directory 
of 1801 also throws much light on well- 
known Boston names. Here are some 
who appear with offices on Long Wharf: Thomas 

11 



STATE STREET 



C. Amory, merchant. No. 36; Uriah Cotting, 
merchant, No. 47, who built Broad Street in 1808, 
India Street in 1809, New Cornhill in 1817; Ben- 
jamin W. Foster, merchant, No. 26, founder of 
the McLean Asylum; Caleb Stimpson, merchant. 
No. 2; Arnold Welles, merchant, No. 14, com- 
mander of the Cadets and prominent in military 
affairs; Timothy Williams, merchant, No. 12. 

Among the other prominent business men on 
State Street in 1801 were James Abelard, No. 78, 
with whom Due de Chartres, afterwards Louis 
Philippe, lived during his residence in Boston; 
Peter C. Brooks, father-in-law of Charles Francis 
Adams; Humphrey Clark, No. 79, and Thomas 
Clark, No. 61; William Endicott, tailor. No. 9; 
Joseph Foster, merchant. No. 31; Moses M. 
Hayes, Insurance, No. 68, Grand Master A. F. 
& A. M. 1788—92; Benjamin and Josiah Loring, 
bookbinders; Francis C. Lowell, merchant. No. 
25, in whose honor the city of Lowell was named; 
Benjamin Russell, editor and publisher of the 
Sentinel, No. 10; Robert G. Shaw, merchant and 
philanthropist; and Samuel Thaxter, mathematical 
instrument maker. No. 49 State Street. 

Other well-known Boston names can be found 
in the Directory of 1801. Some business enter- 
prises of Boston go back farther than this. 

12 



STATE STREET 



SOMETHING ABOUT STATE 
STREET'S OLD TAVERNS. 

N^^UMEROUS and interesting have been 
the public houses on State Street which 
at some time or other have offered their 
good cheer to stranger and townsman. A ** water- 
side resort," the Crown Coffee House, was the 
first house on Long Wharf in 1712. Seamen from 
every land and the leading merchants and the young 
bucks of the thriving town found good cheer here, 
and gossiped at a time when a gentleman was not 
above the seductions of piracy. Many strange 
tales of those fierce buccaneer times were told over 
the glasses of this ancient hostelry. On the south- 
west corner of Exchange Place and State Street 
stood the Royal Exchange Tavern, where in 1690 
Chief Justice Sewall and Colonel William Phipps 
had a famous dinner. This William Phipps, by 
the way, son of a Maine gunsmith and blacksmith, 
had located a treasure-ship sunk off Hispaniola. 
He recovered three hundred thousand pounds, 
gave the Crown ten thousand as its share, took 
twenty thousand pounds as his, and in return was 
made a knight by the king, and then first Governor 
of the New England colonists under the Charter. 

14 



STATE STREET 



And a very p^ood governor he was, at a time when 
good Colonial Governors wore few and far between. 
At the Royal Exchange in 1748 occurred an 
altercation between Phillips and Woodbridge that 
resulted in a duel on the Common and in the death 
of Woodbridge. This old tavern was still stand- 
ing in 1801, and was then kept by Israel Harris. 

ADMIRAL VERNON AND THE 
SEAMAN^S ''GROG.'^ 

THE Admiral Vernon Tavern, which took 
its name from the famous English **sea 
dog" whose name was subsequently given 
to Mount Vernon by Lawrence Washington who 
had served on his staff, stood on the easterly 
corner of State Street and Merchants' Row. Over 
it was the wooden figure of the English admiral, 
sextant in hand, in the uniform of his rank, — 
quite appropriate as a sign for a tavern, when we 
learn that from the hero of Porto Bello comes the 
term "grog," which sea-faring men have given to 
strong drink. It was Admiral Vernon's custom in 
stormy weather to appear on deck clad in a coarse 
grogram. From this he was dubbed by his sailors 
"Old Grog," and soon "grog" was the term they 
gave to the rum and water he occasionally dealt 

15 



STATE STREET 



out to his men. Sliem Drowne, who carved the 
figure over the tavern, was noted in his day for 
the ships' figure-heads he turned out, and his work 
on the hero of Porto Bello was watched with in- 
terest by the artist Copley. 

Another tavern that could have been found on 
State Street in 1787 was Cummings Tavern. The 
Bunch of Grapes, a famous resort, kept by James 
Kendall, in 1801 was on the north-east corner of 
State and Kilby Streets. 

Where No. 66 State Street was in 1870, then the 
site of the Massachusetts Bank, the British Coffee 
House offered its cheer. Here James Otis, of 
Stamp Act fame, was mortally assaulted by one of 
the Excise Commissioners in 1769. Poor Otis, he 
who might have been "the flame of fire" during 
the Revolutionary days that he was during the ex- 
citement of the Stamp Act, became deranged from 
the blow, and, though he took part in the battle of 
Bunker Hill, he retired to Andover, Mass., where 
in 1783 he was killed by a stroke of lightning. 

The Exchange Coffee House, corner of State 
and Devonshire Streets, with an entrance on each, 
was built in 1804, burned down in 1818, rebuilt 
in 1822, and closed as a tavern in 1854. On the 
site of 75 State Street stood in 1803 Fuller's 
Tavern. 

17 



STATE STREET 



ROAST OX AND THE FRENCH 
REVOLUTION. 

THE strangest scene that State Street 
has witnessed was the barbecue at the 
time of the French Revolution. America 
was full of its partisans, and nowhere was this 
friendly sympathy keener than in Boston. Bos- 
tonians of this era delighted in calling each other 
"citizens," and strove in many other ways to show 
their sympathy with the spirit of liberty then sweep- 
ing through France. The feeling found expres- 
sion, two days after the execution of Louis XVI., 
in the barbecue. A thousand-pound ox was killed, 
and its horns gilded and placed on an altar twenty 
feet high. Drawn by fifteen horses and preceded 
by two hogsheads of punch pulled by six horses, 
and accompanied by a cart of bread, it was es- 
corted through the streets of Boston, and finally de- 
posited in State Street. Tables had been spread 
from the Old State House to Kilby Street, and the 
citizens feasted upon roast ox and strong punch, 
to the subsequent confusion of many. Boston's 
fair women decked the windows of the neighboring 
houses, and amused themselves by throwing flow- 
ers upon the f casters, until the scene culminated 

18 



STATE STREET 



in what some of the best citizens characterized as 
a "drunken revelry." When the news of the exe- 
cution of the king reached America, there was a 
sudden revulsion of feeling against his executioners. 

It was on State Street near the Old State House, 
in August, 1806, that Ben Austin, Jr., son of 
"Honestus," a well-known political pamphleteer, 
was shot and killed, during a political row, by- 
Charles Self ridge. Anthony Burns, the fugitive 
slave, was escorted by the entire police and military 
force of Boston, May 26, 1854, down State Street 
to the vessel that carried him back to slavery. 

The extension of State Street from Chatham 
Row to Commercial Street occurred April 13, 
1858. It was extended along the north side of 
State Street Block, and accepted on the same date 
in 1858, and was extended to Atlantic Avenue 
March 27, 1876. 



BUILDING THE TOWN HOUSE. 

THE chief historic interest of State Street 
centres about the Boston Massacre and 
the Old State House. The original 
Town House stood, as we have learned, on 
the site of the first market-place, and may be called 
the forbear of the Old State House. It was to 

19 




Sf^-^rfm 



STATl^: STREET 



Captain Robert Keayne, one of Boston's earliest 
prominent merchants, that the town was indebted 
for its Town House. His generosity must have 
heaped coals of fire upon the heads of his towns- 
men. He was charged by them with making ex- 
orbitant profits, found guilty, and cast into prison. 
At his death, in 1656, he left three hundred 
pounds to Boston for the erection of a Town 
House, and defended in the will liis business 
conduct. 

He outlined that the Town House should con- 
tain a market-place, room for the Courts, room for 
the Townsmen, Commissioners, for a library, a 
galleiy for the Elders, a room for an armory, and 
rooms for merchants and masters of vessels. The 
selectmen considered it, and in March, 1656-57, 
the town chose a committee to consider the plans 
for the Town House. A committee was given full 
power in August, 1657, to erect a building, and to 
bind the town for the payment of tlie contract 
price. 

The building thus constructed was sixty-six 
feet long, thirty-six feet wide, set upon twenty-one 
pillars ten feet high. The second story was parti- 
tioned, making the rooms desired. There was a 
walk on top fifteen feet wide, with two turrets, and 
balusters and rails around the walk. 

21 




The Old State House, as it will appear at the Jamestown Exposition 



STATE STREET 



BURNING OF THE OLD TOWN 
HOUSE. 

AS the building cost six hundred and eighty 
r~\ pounds, the balance required in addition 
to the legacy of Captain Keayne was con- 
tributed by one hundred and four citizens. The 
settlement of the builder's bill was on Feb. 28, 1661. 
The building stood until the fire of 1711, when it 
and one hundred houses on and in the neighborhood 
of King Street were consumed. This fire burned 
all the houses from School Street to Dock Square, 
all of the upper part of King Street, the Town 
House, and the old Meeting House. The leading 
newspaper of the day, the N ews-Letter, ascribed 
the source of the fire to an old Scotch woman who 
lived in a tenement at the head of the street. A 
fire she was using spread to some chips and other 
combustibles near by, and thence to the tenement 
in which she lived. 

A new Town House was inunediately erected, 
one-half of the expense being met by the Province, 
and one-quarter by the town of Boston, and one- 
quarter by the county of Suffolk. The building 
was of brick, one hundred and ten feet long, 
thirty-eight feet wide, and provided accommoda- 

23 



STATE STREET 



tion for the Governor, the Courts, the Secretary of 
the Province, and for the Register of Deeds. This 
second Town House was partially burned in 1747, 
and the present structure, built in 1748, has an 
exterior but slightly altered, though the interior has 
undergone many changes. 

A CHAMBER OF EVENTS.-A 
PIRATE'S TRIAL. 

JOHN ADAMS said, "In it Independence was 
born." The death of George II. and the 
accession of George III. were here pro- 
claimed. In it Generals Howe, Clinton, and 
Gage held a counsel of war before the battle of 
Bunker Hill. On July 18, 1776, from its famous 
east window Colonel Crafts read to the assembled 
multitude the Declaration of Independence, and 
from it also the sheriff of Suffolk County pro- 
claimed the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States. The Constitution of the State 
in 1778 was planned within its walls. Beneath 
it John Hancock was inaugurated first Governor 
of the Commonwealth. Its old walls witnessed 
the convening of the Convention before the dele- 
gates adjourned to adopt in Federal Street Church 
the Constitution of these United States. Every 

24 



STATE STIIIZET 



page of the old records of the Town House lias 
interest. It was the centre of the Revolution of 
1689 when, in the person of Governor Andros, 
royal authority was temporarily overcome, and in 
1699 it was the scene of the trial of Captain Kidd, 
the greatest pirate of an age of famous buccaneers. 
What an interesting audience of spectators there 
must have been, — stern Puritans, soldiers, swarthy 
seamen, perhaps here and there a pirate, in dis- 
guise, and the austere Governor of the Province. 
What a picture for a Macaulay ! 

After his trial and conviction in the Old State 
House, Captain Kidd was conducted to the gloomy, 
forbidding pile of stones, the first prison of the 
Commonwealth, that stood on the site of the pres- 
ent Court House at the head of Queen, now Court 
Street. In this prison, where Kidd remained until 
his execution, were imprisoned the witches of 
those curious witchcraft days. So cold were its 
dark dungeons that the pan of charcoal allowed 
the prisoners often failed to keep the frost 
from them during the bleak, old-fashioned 
winters. 

This prison, at the time of its erection, was 
one of the strongest in the colonies. Puritan jus- 
tice, once its hands fell upon an offender, was in- 
deed difficult to escape. 

25 



STATE STREET 



OLD TOWN HOUSE BECOMES THE 
STATE HOUSE. 

THE Town House was the scene of fes- 
tivities on State occasions, and in it 
also were held the public funerals of the 
early times. When Faneuil Hall was erected in 
1740-42, the building on King Street became the 
State House, where the Legislature as well as 
the Courts assembled, and in its place Faneuil 
Hall became the Town Hall. 

The plans for the capture of Louisburg, June 
17, 1746, described as "the proudest boast of our 
Provincial history," were conceived and com- 
pleted beneath the walls of the Old State House. 
James Otis, "a flame of fire," in its Court-room 
in 1761 made his celebrated plea against the 
Writs of Assistance, and in 1766, in front of its 
doors, a mob burned the Stamp Clearances, 
one of the violent protests against the injustice 
of the Stamp Act. In the Court-room also 
occurred, four years later, the trial of Captain 
Preston and the soldiers implicated in the Boston 
Massacre. And here Samuel Adams presented 
the demand for the withdrawal of the troops to 
the fortress. 



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Reproduced from Paul Revcre's Print of the Boston Massacre 



STATE STREET 



THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 

THE Boston Massacre was the culmina- 
tion of the altercations between the peo- 
ple of Boston and the British troops 
which began in 1768, and grew more and 
more frequent and brutal. The massacre 
itself, which Paul Revere attempted to picture, 
took place March 5, 1770, almost in front of the 
Union Building, Nos. 38 and 40 State Street. 
Soon after nine o'clock on a frosty, bright moon- 
light night two young men, named Archibald 
and Merchant, were coming down Cornhill Street 
(now Washington) together, and attempted to 
pass through Boylston Alley without answering the 
challenge of the sentry there posted. The sentry 
was talking with a rough-looking character, de- 
scribed at the trial as a "mean-looking Irishman," 
who had in his hand a large club. Archibald 
and Merchant were held up, and in the scuffle 
which followed Archibald was struck on the arm, 
and Merchant had his clothes pierced and his skin 
grazed. He struck the soldier with a stick he had 
with him, and the Irishman ran to the barracks 
to alarm the soldiers, returning immediately with 
two of them. 

28 



STATE STREET 



MOB ATTACKS SOLDIEIJS. 

/^ ■ A HE noise of this scuflBe brought a num- 



ber of people to the place, and one of 
them knocked down a soldier. Fol- 
lowed by the crowd, the soldiers returned to the 
barracks, where a dozen of the rest of the soldiers 
ran out, armed, and drove back the people as far as 
Dock Square. The officers succeeded in inducing 
the soldiers to return to their barracks on Brattle 
Street, and they were followed and jeered by the 
mob. 

"Now for the main guard, damn the dogs! Let 
us go and kill the damn scoundrel of a sentry!" 
shouted the crowd. A part of the mob, which 
John Adams, the patriot, in his plea in defense 
of the soldiers, described as "a motley rabble 
of street boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish 
teagues and outlandish Jack-tars," turned upon 
the sentry who stood on the corner of Royal 
Exchange Lane and King Street in front of the 
Custom House, now No. 40 State Street, on the 
corner of Exchange Street. 

"There is the soldier who knocked me down," 
said a boy, pointing to the sentinel. The senti- 
nel retreated up the steps, and loaded his gun. 

20 



STATE STREET 



"The lobster is going to fire," said the boy. 

"If you fire, you must die for it,'* said Henry 
Knox, who was passing. "I don't care," replied 
the sentry. "If they touch me, I will fire." 



CAPTAIN PRESTON TAKES COM- 
MAND. 

CAPTAIN THOMAS PRESTON, hearing 
of the trouble, said that he would go there 
himself, to see that they would do no more 
mischief. Bells began to ring, as many supposed, 
for a fire on King Street. The soldiers in the 
mean time, who had come to the rescue of their 
comrades, were attacked and insulted by the mob, 
led by a mulatto, named Crispus Attucks. 

The soldiers were obliged to present bayonets 
and form a half -circle in front of the Custom House, 
to protect themselves. In great peril Captain 
Preston stood for a while between his men and the 
mob, using every effort to prevent further dis- 
turbance. 

"Are the soldiers loaded.^" asked a bystander 
of Captain Preston. 

"Yes," answered the captain, "with powder and 
ball." 

"Are they going to fire on the inhabitants ? " 

30 



STATE STREET 



"They cannot," said Captain Preston, "with- 
out my orders." 

"For God's sake," said Henry Knox, seizing 
Preston by the coat, "take your men back! If 
they fire, your life must answer for the conse- 
quences." 

"I know what I am about," said Captain 
Preston, hurriedly. 

Some called out: "Come on, you bloody backs, 
you lobster scoundrels! Fire, if you dare! We 
know you dare not." 

Just then a soldier received a severe blow from 
a club, whereupon he stepped a little to one side, 
lifted his piece, and fired. Captain Preston rep- 
rimanded him for firing, and while he was speaking 
he came near being knocked down by a blow from 
a club aimed at him. The crowd pelted the 
soldiers with stones and snowballs. 



CITIZENS ARE KILLED. 

THE tumult became great. Horrid oaths 
and imprecations were hurled by the mob 
at the soldiers. No one was ever able to 
tell whether Captain Preston or anybody else or- 
dered the troops to fire, but fire they did, some seven 
or eight of the soldiers, and the mob hurriedly drew 

31 



STATE STREET 



back, leaving three dead on the ground, two 
mortally wounded, and several slightly wounded. 
The killed were Samuel Bray, Samuel Maverick, 
James Caldwell, Crispus Attucks, and Patrick 
Carr. Six were wounded, two of them, Chris- 
topher Monk and John Clark, mortally. 

The people came back to remove their dead, 
and, thinking they were about to renew the at- 
tack, the soldiers lifted their guns to fire again, but 
Captain Preston stopped them, and ordered them 
back to the main guard, thus preventing further 
bloodshed. A citizen informed the captain that 
there were five thousand people coming to take 
his life and the lives of his men. He disposed his 
men into firing parties on the side streets, and 
people began to gather from every direction. The 
people cried everywhere, "Turn out with your 
guns, every man!" 

Oflicers of the Twenty-ninth Regiment of the 
British, on making their way to their companies, 
were knocked down by the mob and many injured, 
and a number of them had their scabbards taken 
away from them. 

Under the influence of Livingston, Colonel 
Carr, and other distinguished citizens, the people 
were persuaded to go to their homes. 



32 



STATE STREET 



SOLDIERS ARE TRIED AND CON- 
VICTED. 

A HUGE meeting in the Old South Church 
was held the next morning, and it was re- 
solved impossible for the townspeople and the 
soldiers to live longer together in amicable relations. 
A committee was appointed to request the soldiers* 
removal. Accordingly, the soldiers were sent to 
the Castle. Captain Preston and the soldiers en- 
gaged in the affray were arrested and tried for 
murder. Robert Treat Paine and Sanmel Quincy 
appeared for the government, and John Adams, 
Josiah Quincy, and Sumner Salter Blowers appeared 
for the prisoners. Adams made an eloquent plea 
in their defence. Two were found guilty of man- 
slaughter, and were branded on the hand with a 
red-hot iron and discharged. The others were 
acquitted. The remains of the dead were buried 
in the Granary Burying ground. Only recently 
was a monument to their memory erected on Boston 
Common. The place of the massacre in State 
Street is indicated by a stone block, with paving- 
stones radiating therefrom, about twelve feet south 
of the south-east corner of State and Exchange 
Streets. 

33 



STATE STREET 



MORE EPISODES OF THE OLD 
STATE HOUSE. 

GOVERNOR GAGE was sworn into office 
in the hall of the Old State House in 1774, 
and from the east balcony window went 
forth again the usual proclamation of a new royal 
representative. From 1692, until 1774-75, when 
the Province concluded to dispense with its Gov- 
ernors, eleven such chief magistrates had received 
the Royal Commission, and had been proclaimed 
to the people from the State House. 

Musty records tell of General Thomas Gage, com- 
mander of all the troops in the country, landing 
at Long Wharf, and marching up King Street, 
escorted by Boston Cadets, under command of 
John Hancock, who later was sorely disappointed 
because he was not made commander-in-chief 
of the army that fought these same red-coats. On 
the same balcony stood the sheriff of Suffolk 
County on April 27, 1783, when he read to the 
assembled multitude the Proclamation of Peace; 
and, when General Washington visited Boston in 
October, 1789, he received the honors of the town, 
and viewed the procession that did him homage 



34 



STATE STREET 



from the balcony on the west end of the Old State 
House, from which there had been erected a trium- 
phal arch. 



DARK AGES OF COMMERCIALISM. 

THE completion of the new State House 
on Beacon Hill in 1798 marks the end 
of the old one as the place of meeting of 
the Legislature, and the date of the removal of the 
Courts to the Court House on Court Street, pre- 
viously known as Queen Street. 

After the removal of the Legislature and Courts 
from the Old State House, the State, the County, 
and the City had a falling out as to the ownership 
of the Old State House and land, but, finally, the 
property came into the possession of the city of 
Boston. The city leased the building to tenants 
until 1830, when it became the City Hall. After 
the removal of the city oflBces to the new City Hall 
on School Street, the historic building was again 
given over to tenants. 

Then began the era that one can term the " Dark 
Ages" of the building. It was defaced with signs, 
wires and advertisements so that its worthy ex- 
terior became a shabby patchwork of colored 
publicity. It was an eye-sore, and cried aloud 

35 



STATE STREET 



against Boston's lack of veneration for its historic 
past. The city awoke finally to the shame of the 
old building and in 1881 it ordered a complete 
restoration. The historic edifice, July 11, 1882, 
was rededicated with appropriate ceremonies as a 
repository of historic things, and since it has re- 
ceived the careful consideration of the city govern- 
ment. Now, thanks to the efforts of the Bostonian 
Society, " which promotes the study of the History 
of Boston and the preservation of its antiquities, *' 
it is what the venerable building ever should be, — a 
memorial and museum of the most important 
events in the history of this nation. 




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STATE STREET 



STATE STREET TRUST COMPANY. 

ONE of the oldest buildings and one of the 
landmarks of State Street is the Union 
Building, which stands directly opposite 
the spot where the Boston Massacre took place. 
This building was erected in the year 1826. The 
lower floor of the building is occupied by the main 
oflSce of the State Street Trust Company, which 
is one of the well-known financial institutions 
of Boston to-day. Occupying as its main oflBce 
one of the old buildings on State Street, the 
company has established in the Back Bay, on the 
comer of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston 
Street, a banking building of the most modern 
type exclusively for its own use. 




39 



STATE STPiEET 



INSCRIPTION ON THE PRINT 
SHOWING THE LANDING OF THE 
BRITISH IN BOSTON IN 17()8. 

THE lower right-hand comer of the illustra- 
tion on page 10 reads, "To the Earl of 
Hillsborough, His Majest", Scr^ of State for 
America this view of the only well Plan'd Expe- 
dition formed for Supporting y' dignity of Britain 
& Chastizing y" insolence of America is hum' 
inscribed." 

The printing at the bottom of the cut gives 
the names of the numbered ships and wharves 
and battery shown in the cut: — 

"#1 Beaver, #2 Senegal, #3 Martin, #4 Glas- 
gow, #5 Mermaid, #6 Romney, #7 Launceston, 
#8 Bonetta. 

"On fryday Sept' 30'' 1768, the Ships of War, 
armed Schooners, Transports &c. Came up the 
Harbour and Anchored round the Town; their 
Cannon loaded, a Spring on their Cables, as for 
a regular Siege. At noon on Saturday, October 
the 1" the fourteenth & twenty-ninth Regi- 
ments, a detachment from the 59'" Reg' and a 
Train of Artillery, with two pieces of Cannon 
landed on the Long Wharf; there Formed and 

41 



APR 15 iso; 



STATE STREET 



Marched with insolent Parade, Drums beating, 
Fifes playing and Colours flying up King Street, 
each Soldier having received 16 rounds of Powder 
and Ball/' 

The imprint is, "Engraved, Printed & Sold 
by Paul Revere, Boston." 




42 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



i 



014 076 922 8 • 



